Libretto by Yuri Grigorovich
Choreographer: Yuri Grigorovich
Sets and costumes: Simon Virsaladze
Music Director: Vassily Sinaisky
Lighting Designer: Mikhail Sokolov
Designers of scenery revival: Natalia Pavlova, Mikhail Sapozhnikov
Designer of costumes revival: Elena Merkurova
Music:
excerpts from music to the film Ivan the Terrible, Russian Overture, cantata Alexander Nevsky, The Third Symphony
Mikhail Chulaki’s version and additional music excerpts
People dressed in monastic garb appear: these are the Oprichniki the tsar decided to surround himself with. He entrusts them with exterminating treason and crushing the power of the boyars. The boyars are seized and massacred by the Oprichniki. Ivan the Terrible personally takes reprisal against them.
Dark are Ivan’s thoughts - the thoughts of a man who lost his love, of a tsar surrounded by enemies.
Haunted by phantoms, Ivan writhes at the thought that he has given up humanity in his struggle and has doomed himself to a life of loneliness.
Frantically does Ivan the Terrible seek a way out of the labyrinth of contradictions set up by history.